National News Briefs; 7 on Trial in Illinois On Conspiracy Charges

Published: April 7, 1999

WHEATON, Ill., April 6—
Three former Illinois prosecutors and four sheriff's deputies went on trial today, charged with misconduct and conspiring to obstruct justice in the convictions of a man for the rape and murder of a 10-year-old girl.

The prosecution said the defendants lied and fabricated evidence against the man, Rolando Cruz, who spent nearly a decade on death row.

Mr. Cruz was convicted twice of killing the girl, Jeanine Nicarico, who was abducted from her home in the Chicago suburb of Naperville in 1983. The authorities pressed on despite evidence that another man might have been the killer, despite appeals court losses and a campaign by religious leaders, law school deans and journalists convinced that Mr. Cruz was innocent.

Then, in Mr. Cruz's third trial in 1995, a supervisor in the sheriff's department recanted his testimony, casting doubt on a cornerstone of the prosecution: that Mr. Cruz had revealed incriminating details to detectives in a 1983 statement.

Mr. Cruz was acquitted, and charges against his co-defendant, Alejandro Hernandez, were dropped.

The defense contends that seven men, some of whom did not know each other well, could not have engineered a conspiracy that spanned three administrations in the state's attorney's office. They also intend to attack Mr. Cruz's credibility.